Another day, another interview.
It seemed we had done more interviews during this tour than we had done since the early days when everyone was so fascinated by us. There was something about the walks and all our charity work that fascinated people, I supposed.
We were scheduled to take the walk that day on some college campus–I couldn’t even recall the name of it; they were all the same to me–and the college newspaper was all too keen to interview us. I had to hand it to them; they had put a lot of effort into impressing us and appearing professional. Along with the carefully constructed studio set so that our interview could also be filmed for the on-campus television station, they had provided us with a green room stocked with food that I suspected was better than what the students ate.
I only grabbed a small plate full of vegetables, ignoring the canapes and cocktail shrimps that my brothers salivated over.
It wasn’t until the interview began that I regretted my choice of food. My stomach growled so loudly I was sure that the sound could be heard on camera. An entire campus full of college students who probably already thought they were way cooler than me would get to laugh at the strange noises my body made. Fantastic. As if I needed to give the rest of the world another reason to make fun of me, another reason to be convinced I was useless, worthless, pathetic.
“It’s not really about solving all of the world’s problems, but just taking small steps that anyone can do.” Taylor was droning on again, and I hoped his voice was covering my stomach’s cacophony.
I could barely even focus on what he was saying at all, but that was nothing new. It was all too easy to zone out while Taylor rambled; this wasn’t the first and I was sure wouldn’t be the last time I had lost all focus during an interview.
“Zac? Zac?” I heard someone saying and I blinked a few times to bring them into focus. It was Ike, his elbow digging into my side to punctuate his statement.
“Huh?” I said. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re really happy to be working with people like Blake and Toms Shoes.”
The answer, I hoped, related to the question but I couldn’t be certain. Isaac still looked annoyed with me, but Taylor jumped right in, going off on another tangent about our latest trip to Africa to help distribute said shoes. I was off the hook, at least until he stopped speaking, but I knew that space out would come back to bite me in the ass later.
Thankfully, the interview was done quickly. They had wanted us to perform a song, but they weren’t really equipped for that. We managed a little a capella and that seemed to please the girl who had interviewed us. She was a fan, I decided. That was good, at least. If I had pulled such a disappointing performance with a non-fan interviewing us, I would definitely never live it down. But this girl, I could tell, saw us through rose colored glasses through which we could never possibly do any wrong. If only she knew the truth.
Once we were finally dismissed, I headed back to the green room first, but I knew my brothers were hot on my heels. I snatched a bottle of lukewarm water from the table and washed down a few pills, not even bothering to count the number. Because they were technically supposed to be taken with food, and my stomach had made its opinion on that subject well known during the interview, I grabbed a little vegetable pizza appetizer and popped the whole thing into my mouth at once. It tasted like cardboard.
I could feel my brothers eyes on me even before I turned around.
“What?” I asked, picking up another pizza and forcing it down just for show. I hoped neither Isaac nor Taylor could see the way I gagged on it, barely able to force even that small amount of food down my throat.
“You’ve been a real space cadet lately,” Isaac remarked. The words were slightly forced and rough around the edges; he had been fighting off what we had termed The Crud for a few days. Inevitably, at least one person per tour came down with The Crud, which tended to be somewhere between the average cold and a deadly case of the flu.
“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be any different than usual,” I remarked.
“It is,” Ike said. “And really, I am not feeling at all like joking around with you about it. I don’t think you’ve answered a question in the last five interviews we’ve done. You’ve spoken, sure, but maybe one out of ten replies actually relate to what you’ve been asked. What the hell, man?”
I shrugged. “End of the tour? The Crud is spreading, I think.”
“That’s a weak excuse and you know it,” Taylor replied.
“You better hope you’re not coming down with what I’ve got,” Isaac said, punctuating the statement with an exaggerated sniffle. “One of these coughing fits would probably break half your ribs. Which, by the way, have been visible through your shirts lately. Eat a fucking hamburger.”
That wasn’t fair or true, I thought. Well, it wasn’t untrue. It was just an exaggeration. I was only down to a hundred and forty three pounds. That wasn’t even underweight for my height, although it was closer than I had probably ever been. As for the hamburger comment, I couldn’t even justify that with a response. A part of me wanted to rattle off the exact caloric content of the average fast food hamburger, and how that wouldn’t make a dent in my weight loss, but the other part of me knew that even that amount of food would make me feel bloated for days and like I wanted to claw my stomach out with my bare hands. Rather than reply with words, I just held up my middle finger. It wasn’t a creative comeback at all, but it was all I had and exactly as mature as Isaac seemed to expect from me. Who was I to disappoint?
Ike grabbed a bottle of water and wandered away then, mumbling about blowing his brains out. I hated that sort of hyperbole. What did he know about truly wanting to kill yourself, about having to keep the key to your gun case on your wife’s key chain just to keep yourself from having such easy access when the urge to see your brains splattered on the walls struck again? I knew he didn’t really have those urges—what sane person did?—and that made it even worse when he threw out such flippant comments.
Taylor watched him walk away then turned back to me and offered a slightly more sympathetic look. But only slightly. “He’s not wrong, you know. I mean, you’ve lost a lot of weight. I know we all forget to eat on tour, but you can’t push yourself that hard. If you catch what he’s got, you might not have the strength to recover.”
“It’s a cold, Tay,” I replied. “Not the bird flu. And you know Ike’s always a big baby when he gets sick. He can play an entire concert with a blood clot threatening to make his whole damn arm explode, but god forbid he gets a sore throat or the sniffles.”
Taylor laughed at that, because he knew I was right. Our brother was a big baby who really didn’t care about anyone but himself when he got sick. I loved him to death, but even the slightest illness turned him into a drama queen. I really wasn’t concerned at all about his supposed complaints about my behavior.
“Look,” I said. “He’ll get over it. And I’ll answer every damn question in the next interview, if it’ll make him happy.”
“Somehow, I doubt that will make him happy,” Taylor replied, but there was still a slight smile on his face. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was close enough. He was letting his guard down, ignoring the worries Isaac was trying to create. If we could joke around with each other, then nothing was wrong, right? I could practically see Taylor’s brain working, trying to convince himself of that because that lie was easier than trying to figure out what was really wrong.
For once, I was really glad that Taylor was an endless optimist. It was all too easy to play into that and make him see what he wanted to see. If he saw me laughing and smiling right then, he could ignore the moments when I wasn’t. It was easier to assume everything was going well. It was easier to ignore the bad. At least, for Taylor it was. In that way, I kind of envied him.
“Does anything really make Ike happy?” I shot back, giving Taylor a lopsided grin.
“Whiskey, I think,” Taylor replied, looking mock thoughtful. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea, with that cold he’s got. Buy him a bottle of whiskey and make him a hot toddy. Kill two birds with one stone.”
“If I ply him with whiskey, do you think he’ll lay off?” I asked. “Will you both lay off?”
Taylor’s smile fell. I had said the wrong thing, and I knew it as soon as the words left my mouth. “Ike has a weird way of showing it, I’ll grant him that. But we’re both just concerned about you. We are your big brothers, after all.”
I just barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Since when had they ever acted like my big brothers? Being a band meant treating each other as equals, ignoring the fact that I was too young for the parties they drug me to, too young to understand some of the decisions we made as a unit. But now Taylor wanted to pull the big brother card, when nothing at all was wrong—at least, nothing he needed to concern himself with now.
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied, heaving an exaggerated fake sigh as though I were used to this sort of speech from Taylor. I picked up a quarter of turkey sandwich from the table. “If I eat this so I don’t die from The Crud or whatever, will you lay off?”
“You could eat the whole damn turkey and it wouldn’t make a difference,” Taylor replied. “But if you eat that right now, then yes, I’ll leave you alone. For now.”
I hated myself for trying to strike a bargain with him. I had already eaten my fill of carrots and broccoli. That should have been enough. Left to my own devices, that would have been my only meal until the concert that night, but Taylor didn’t need to know that. But if I didn’t eat the sandwich, however insubstantial it was, he would know that much. Trying to hide my anger, I ripped off a large bite of the sandwich, doing my best to ignore how bland and awful it tasted.
“Happy now?” I asked, mouth full of turkey, cheese and white bread.
“I’m getting there,” Taylor replied, but his crossed arms and narrowed eyes said otherwise. “You eat a few more of those while I go try to smooth things over with Ike.”
I mumbled something that he was free to interpret as agreement, but it really wasn’t. It took all the strength I had just to swallow the first few bites of that sandwich. There was no way I could eat a few more.
Once Taylor was gone, I rushed to the small bathroom to the side of our little green room. No one else was around, but I locked the door and turned on the fan just in case. No one needed to hear what I was about to do.
I hated this, but sometimes it was necessary. Sticking my fingers down my throat wasn’t something I did often, and I still wasn’t very good at it. No one really wants to throw up, after all. When that feeling kicks in, it’s only natural to fight it.
After several tries, I gave a horrible cough, but nothing came with it. I knew the food hadn’t had long enough to digest, so what was the problem? I tried again, and that time the coughing fit made my vision blur and fade to black. And still… nothing.
This what my punishment for letting my brothers bully me into eating. That was all there was to it. I had let them get to me, and now I was stuck with the calories I had consumed to appease them. Next time I would have to be stronger. They were already asking too many questions, but I couldn’t let their questions force me into eating more and undoing the progress I had made. I would have to find some better way to lie and cover my tracks, or everything I had worked so hard for would be ruined.